And Just Like That - What It Got Wrong (And What It Did Right)

you will laugh again especially if you have one or two good friends in your corner and just like that in the season one finale of their Revival the ladies of Sex in the City came home to themselves after a long time away while HBO Max has announced that and just like that is its most successful original series ever season one has also courted plenty of criticism viewers have taken issue with Miranda's sudden pivot from aspirational career woman to desperately insecure cringe-worthy Fool in Love Woody what do you mean this isn't gonna work with the framing of non-binary comedian Che as a self-aggrandizing ultimately not that funny guide to wokeness woke moment and with the absence of beloved character Samantha Jones who took with her something of The Originals fun Edge and most of sex in the city's sex alright no sex for me indefinitely but the finale shows Carrie Miranda and Charlotte returning to themselves and rediscovering their Mojo shows and exciting ways that hint at how much story there is left to discover here's our take on how and just like that faltered and got its groove back and how the season tries to land a key message from the original show that it's the ever-evolving relationship you have with yourself that matters most if you're new here be sure to subscribe and click the Bell to get notified about all our new videos [Music] the biggest absence in and just like that has of course been Kim Cattrall's Samantha as an Irreplaceable member in the fabulous for friendship and even more so as the primary bringer of edgy exploration and uncensored sexuality that Define Sex in the City for many viewers when it aired and just like that's almost total lack of explicit depictions of the act itself reminds us just how much of that was provided by Samantha Who featured in over 40 percent of the original sex scenes voiced a lot of its profanity and was shown with over double the number of on-screen sexual partners each of the other ladies had how many sexual partners have you had um this year in the Revival the other three characters are having even less sex than before and when Charlotte reveals she and Harry still do have a sex life Miranda jokes about her shock so many times it's impossible for Charlotte to get any meaningful response you still below Harry is it his birthday no and yes I still blow Harry now do you guys have that out of your system so that I could talk about my problem and just like that doesn't even really try to use any of its new characters to provide the unfiltered sexual observation that was a key aspect of the original formula not only does this remove what once came across as edgy about sex in the city but it also takes away a key aspect of the writing's connective tissue if you look back at the original Sex in the City one of the most impressive things about the show is the way it featured the four women's interwoven storylines all held together with a shared theme or question pick season 3 episode 6 titled are we after the main question Carrie asks herself for her weekly column but how many men is too many men are we simply romantically challenged or are we the episode explores this question from different angles through four mirroring situations Carrie is surprised in her promising new relationship with Aiden because he wants to wait to have sex Charlotte gets called a as part of Dirty Talk Samantha's neighbors are angry her late night lover accidentally let in a burglar and Miranda finds out she has an STD I had to make a list of all the guys I've slept with and uh it's not short and in the end of an episode the intersection of all these plots offers Carrie a multi-sided answer to her question Miranda's plot underlines that making a woman feel ashamed of her number is a silly double standard note men who have had a lot of sexual partners are not called and Samantha's plot reveals that judging anyone as a is a sign of a stuffy neighborhood a bunch of dry to both farts who haven't had sex since Eisenhower and I remind them of what they can't have it might be time to move but on the other end of the spectrum Charlotte's compulsively dirty talking partner has some unexplored psychological issues that make him not the right match for her and Carrie discovers that there can be something special about not having sex right away for the first time in a long time I was nervous Aiden and I were going to sleep together and it was going to mean something without the dating and sexual exploits helping each episode to come together around a clearly defined theme laid out in Carrie's voiceover about whatever she couldn't help but wonder that week and just like that doesn't cohere with the same resonance before the show many speculated as to who would replace Samantha as the fourth main character on the show every outfit on Sex in the City creators Lauren garone and Chelsea Fairless have said Anthony is the closest to filling the Irreplaceable seat with Fairless saying Anthony has a samantha-esque perspective she would be the one cracking the jokes about how politically correct everyone suddenly is I don't know if they're Jewish but they're all cut so close enough others see Samantha in Carrie's new best friend Seema who has Miss Jones's unfiltered conversation love of men Unapologetic ego and tendency to flaunt her connections I can't remember the last time I went into line U to get my vaccine oh honey I was shooting me then I got mine before the president and she finally brings a little bit bit of sex to the show when she meets a new man but whereas Samantha relished not being tied down seema's single because she hasn't found the one her desire for a long-term forever romance makes her much more of a carry I really thought 53 would be the year I meet my guy the most direct Samantha stand in this season is really Che Diaz Carrie's boss and Miranda's new love interest Che shares Samantha's Unapologetic promiscuity and you hooked up with a friend of ours Melvin Melvin degayo and buffalo and he slept with another friend of ours Aubry in the Twin Cities and self-assurance bordering on narcissism this has been underlined by the popular meme making fun of Che Diaz announcing themselves with their full name hey it's Jay Diaz and in the finale when Che tells Miranda they're moving to La Via a public song [Music] a move that even love struck Miranda has to acknowledge his off-putting or I would have told you privately and yet you had time to put together a band and a song and crackers what can I say I'm a narcissist but while in theory chase sounds like an interesting way to bring Samantha's energy into new places the character's execution can be unsatisfying as evidenced by the plethora of weekly memes and tweets complaining about Che we hear that chase leaves with a lot of people but we don't see their exploits except with Miranda and even after Che warns Miranda they're not into anything traditional they still seem fine with acting like it's more or less a monogamous relationship more centrally Chase forced to take on the tiresome task of being the main character's guide educating all the ladies in contemporary correctness inclusion and wokeness sexual expression of any kind should always be discussed and consented to by all parties involved it's one of the reasons why despite all the other characters constantly laughing at Chase's slightest utterance don't worry I'm not going to subject to my stand-up it's supposedly hilarious comedian doesn't get to voice much actually funny material meanwhile Samantha was always the most incorrect one and it was the things she said that were wrong or the things she did that might make others uncomfortable that often made her provocative and just like that explanation that Samantha turned her back on the lady's friendship for relatively Petty reasons doesn't do justice to her friends forever personality don't you want to judge me just a little bit not my style still what the show does right about Samantha is not to Simply forget about her erase her from the picture or truly write in a new Samantha executive producer Michael Patrick King confirmed they're not expecting Kim Cattrall to ever come back and even said that doors not open after control liked unflattering tweets about the show yet King said it was important emotionally for fans to know what happened to Samantha and work through the loss of her the season spends a significant amount of screen time on Carrie thinking about or texting Samantha even in climactic parts of the finale driving home that carries longtime friend can't be replaced in her heart or in ours and that it's important to honor these relationships in our lives rather than trying to Simply cut them out or forget about them if they go south in addition to the absences of big Samantha and due to the death of Willie Garson Stanford the other major loss in and just like that is Miranda or at least the Miranda we used to know we argued in our Miranda video that she was sex in the city's most aspirational character thanks to her unabashed independence ambition and refreshing no attitude but on and just like that middle-aged Miranda has become a shell of her former self deeply anxious and uncertain these these feelings I have for you these giant giant feelings I I feel like you have them too but maybe don't so am I crazy it's long been posited online that Miranda should be queer and the actor who plays her Cynthia Nixon is married to a woman but the way the show chose to have this play out has earned its fair share of criticism King has suggested that viewers upset over Miranda and Chase stems from viewers being team Steve or more fundamentally feeling challenged by Miranda not accepting typical settled married life as enough merry life Marina the more fundamental problem is that as Miranda undergoes this major life change she seems to have lost all of the self-assurance boldness and Rye intellectual attitude that always made her her and while King calls Che Miranda's Liberator this burgeoning relationship also seems to bring out Miranda's most insecure self like when she surprises Che at home with cookies is gently rebuffed and then runs down the stairs spiraling about how stupid she is for this spontaneous gesture I I shouldn't have come so stupid who am I Meg Ryan Miranda's needy cringy Antics also plant the uncomfortable question what does che actually see in her it's hard to imagine viewers having this thought on the original show when Miranda as the high-powered and upfront lawyer modeled an empowering and very magnetic this is who I am take it or leave it mentality I drink coffee and have sex and buy pies and enjoy battery operated devices if you can't deal with that I will find another housekeeper who can ironically it would have made a lot more sense for Trey to be interested in Miranda if Miranda were her old self instead though her storyline which may be described in uplifting rom-com terms by Miranda herself I'm in a rom-com carry feels like a downer where we see a middle-aged woman flailing desperately in her search for love are you gonna answer it no I mean I want to but I'm not I've been to available lately oh so you're doing the rules now it also sets up an awkward power imbalance where the highly sought after Che holds all the cards without us really understanding what Miranda is contributing to che's life the same is true in Miranda's friendship with her professor Naya Wallace who pretty quickly treats Miranda as her close friend and Confidant despite Miranda's off-putting behavior in their first meeting hey hey Professor sets I am the professor you're the professor realism and cynicism were once Miranda's defining qualities and she was quick to call out her friends for seeing their love lives through rose-colored glasses you're living in to see but she's now the one who's dreamy to a fault it's possible that this uncharacteristically jittery behavior is because Miranda is overwhelmed by intense feelings of love and lust she hasn't really experienced to this degree before and so this change in her could be a good thing but Miranda's journey of self-discovery and reclaiming her sexuality feels less fun than it should have been Fairless points out that if the show wanted to celebrate Miranda as more gender non-conforming they also could have been more radical in her fashion since this has always been a major form of Joyful self-expression in Sex in the City Fairless says it's especially insane given the fact that Balenciaga has really helped to elevate and glamorize that look that she had the short haircut the big boxy suits that minimalist androgyny foreign the first season finale of and just like that is all about return as the characters symbolically find themselves again viewers may have been shocked that and just like that wastes no time in killing off Carrie's long-time romantic interest Mr Big in its very first episode but according to King Carrie's Story was to test the thesis that she says in the voiceover at the end of the series but the most exciting challenging and significant relationship of all it's the one you have with yourself King went on I always wanted to test Carrie's relationship with herself to see if that was literally something that could stand the test of a great tragedy it always struck some viewers as a little strange that that monologue King's referring to about putting the self-relationship first is interrupted by a call from her man throughout Sex in the City we never actually get to see if she can put this wisdom of self-love into practice because she's never free of her hang up on Mr Big But the irony of the series has long been that while Carrie's always been in love with big she's rarely actually with him in a stable partnership free of major conflicts in and just like that it's only after Big's gone that we reconnect again with the familiar carry we know and love the one who's mostly on her own and to At Last fully Embrace her relationship with herself she has to accept what is her true final breakup with big death the ultimate breakup dude that's a t-shirt so clearly I win worst breakup ever according to King Juan hunting big has always been the major engine of Carrie's narrative quote the interesting thing about Carrie is Carrie's always been grieving Mr Big in some way or another on Sex in the City she was always feeling the loss of him in her life when she couldn't have him and now he's gone so the DNA is tragic and more finite and more real this is with The Arc of the first season which ends with Carrie scattering Biggs ashes in exactly the place where they had their ultimate rom-com moment coming together at the end of the original series simultaneously Carrie returns to herself as a creative when she concludes the finale by beginning her own podcast at last uttering the words that have been missing for 10 episodes this Sex in the City earlier in the series Carrie's trying to prove she can be hip and woke on a comedy podcast that's speaking flippantly and graphically about sex today termed kinda raunchy well that's where it goes sometimes and you need to go with it or the trolls will label you the uptight cisgender female married lady but while she eventually manages to land her zingers and of course has always had the iconic wordplay Carrie has never really been primarily about humor or sex her Central concern has always been the search for love I am someone who is looking for love real love and when her producer Franklin tells her that she shines most in openly discussing relationship trials you're so good when people call in about that relationship stuff this feels like the show returning to a deeper understanding of what it always really was a guide to understanding the emotional life of relationships be they romances friendships or self-love after she concludes that she's received messages from Biggs ghost via her lamp and her dreams Carrie surprises herself with the realization that she's ready to start a new chapter of dating and Carrie's final episode includes two very different kisses the First with widower and teacher of the year Peter is lackluster in part Carrie admits because he asks her permission he asked permission for the kiss which I understand but you know contract for a kiss she worries whether in today's culture of correctness it's even possible to ReDiscover the magic of romantic spontaneity but in the episode's final moments her second kiss shows that it's indeed very possible to be consensual and spontaneous when she's taken by surprise by her developing feelings with Franklin and their organically drawn together and just like that mirroring this plot Charlotte thanks to some crucial mom advice from her new best friend Lisa Todd wexley or ltw understands the need to recognize herself and all the excellent work she puts in as a stay-at-home mom I have watched you take care of every single person in your world every single day so when her child Rock refuses to go through with their they Mitzvah Charlotte steps in to get bot Mitzvah herself and enjoy the amazing event she planned someone is going out there and getting they mitzvahed today of all the characters Charlotte has retained herself the most the perfectionist Upper East Side Mom feels pretty true to how we'd always imagined she'd be in this role that's a good sign things are moving forward I love that you're still that girl and like in the original show ever traditional Charlotte is challenged by a world that keeps moving forward but in this case since those challenges come from her kids she doesn't have the option of rejecting what makes her uncomfortable as she could when a date pushed her boundaries she has to fully accept her kids as they are I love that you feel comfortable in your body and I am not trying to shame you a major challenge for Charlotte that she ultimately handles by bringing her signature Grace nurturing and love and in the finale we at last get to see even Miranda starting to return to herself in the episode Miranda's trademark skepticism comes back when she bluntly challenges Carrie's beliefs about the afterlife Heaven seriously what are you saying there's no Heaven are you saying there is and when she decides to take the leap to follow Che to La despite the disapproval of those around her this on the surface sounds like another drastic departure from her former self but even if putting love over career is a new choice for her doubling down on her choice and confidently sticking with her beliefs when others object is classic Miranda matching this recovery of her boldness Miranda brings back her signature red locks what happened to all the gray Pride it's still there I just felt we're saying the gray ages you no you think the gray ages you returning to her red fiery self is true to following her instincts in this moment so perhaps Miranda's Arc this season is someone who's made themselves unhappy by worrying about everything they're supposed to do finally getting in touch with what they really feel like doing without caring about what others think this puts Miranda back in aspirational territory after all that's not to say she's necessarily making the wisest choice to follow Che to La carry objecting to the extremely unmiranda move of giving up her competitive internship at Human Rights Watch to follow Che what are you gonna do in LA all day sit in an audience and laugh is a clear callback to the original show when Miranda was opposed to Carrie moving to Paris with the Russian what are you gonna do over there without your job eat croissant and there are some red flags in Miranda's and Chase relationship you're not my girlfriend and we're not dating we're not what are we doing but it feels like following her heart is what Miranda needs to do right now to evolve into the new her with the old Miranda's self-assurance seeing the characters more fully formed again in the finale it's hard not to wish that the sometimes awkward and Bleak season had started here but it was as if the reboot needed to take certain steps to find its way back to itself just as the ladies do it needed to mourn two key pieces of the original formula and also make sense of how these women entering new phases of life in a very different world could find healthy ways to evolve without losing themselves while the season was critically panned HBO made a point of confirming that viewership has been great suggesting perhaps that dramatic quality isn't always the most important thing we want out of this or any show as vogue's Michelle Ruiz puts it it makes me think about how we Define good A lot of people I know think and just like that is bad but they still watch it and can't stop talking about it is it that bad if it has this effect on us perhaps what Sex in the City means to us most of all is a chance to stay connected to these characters to track their bonds with each other with themselves and with us as they've grown into almost people in our lives over the years I'm rooting for you too because I could hear in the time I was peeing how strong your bond is and just like that first season has been dominated by themes of death and loss but the finale Centers growth our little girl is a woman earlier in the season Miranda compares herself to a dead person it was like two dead people trying to get her on like zombie sex so her story is one of coming back to life as symbolized by her hair transition from Gray to vibrant red as king put it life came at her just the way death came at Carrie the story underlines that personal Evolution doesn't stop at a certain age it's a process that continues our entire lives and far from the future being set in stone it's something that we get to write ourselves the Futures Unwritten this is the take on your favorite movie shows and culture subscribe so you can watch all of our videos [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Take

Views: 308,813

Keywords: sex and the city, and just like that, carrie bradshaw, samantha jones, sarah jessica parker, cynthia nixon, miranda hobbs, kristin davis, charlotte york, sara ramirez, che diaz, evan handler, harry goldenblatt, rock, lily, rose, seema, brady, mario cantone, anthony marentino, steve, karen pittman, lisa todd wexley, nicole ari parker, hbo, revival, peter, finale, season 1, explained, big

Id: k3Ig3r3pvhI

Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 10 2022